I'm not cut out for blogging

Things have been pretty topsy-turvy in the last month or so. I visited some friends at NAU, which was delightful as a Phoenix resident. My girlfriend and I parted ways which, while I recognize it was probably better in the long run given circumstances in my life, was not too fun, to say the least. I've also had to schedule a defensive driving class after getting into a very minor collision with a truck(*grumble.*) I've been playing a lot of Mass Effect lately. It's quite enjoyable, but I wouldn't say it's all it's hyped up to be. My control over tone and pitch on tuba is getting significantly better. I'm already considerably better than I ever was on trombone.

Anyway, that's little bits and pieces of my personal life, if you care to know.

A quick thought on the idea of human soul

A lot of hubbub surrounds the concept of the soul. To give the idea legitimacy in the modern world, theists put the soul in the category of "fundamentally unknowable things" by declaring that it cannot be measured or observed in any significant manner. What I think they don't realize is that this is more or less a concession that admits that there is no soul, as it is traditionally thought of. If the soul is not a product of the brain then it is meaningless, because the mind is easily demonstrated to be a product of the brain. Even if the soul is said the be the thing responsible for subjective experience, what good is a soul without a mind? What good is a continued subjective experience left after death if thoughts, feelings, memories, and senses are all absent?

For purpose of illustration, imagine that after the rest of you died, your pinky finger continued (somehow) to live, taking in energy and replacing dead cells, doing all the things it did while you were alive. Few people would consider this to be "eternal life" because the part of them that survives is not an essential part of themselves. Similarly, there's not much "self" left for any theoretical soul to have because the vast majority of the self is confirmed to be part of the body and brain. So even if our "soul" lived on, there would still be no "afterlife" as most people see it.

Way Out There

Looking back at things I've written here and eslewhere, I've realized my writting is really terrible. I guess I'll blame the (alleged) bane to literacy that is text-mesaging. I've grown so used to trying to fit ideas into such a tiny number of characters that I have difficultly talking about things in a more drawn-out and detailed way. Hrm.

Anyway, I was on the xkdc forums the other day, and I came accross a point that really irks me. Lots of people believe in extraterrestrial life, which in itself is fine, but many (those who are scientifically-minded and intelligent included) seem to think it is rationally superior to the belief that extraterrestrial does not exists. The idea is that the sheer scale of the Universe makes life elsewhere almost a certainty, because with all the trillions upon trillions of stars (and potentially planets) the odds are pretty good that life also developed somewhere besides here, right?

To lazily quote my post from the forums:

The reasoning behind this argument is fundamentally flawed. It doesn't matter how incomprehensably many planets may exist, since we don't have any clue as to what the likelihood of life developing on any given planet is. Let's say n is the total number of planets that have existed or will exist at any point in time for all eternity or until the Universe ends. I think everyone can agree that's a pretty large number. But what if the probability of life developing on a planet at any point in the planet's lifetime is 1:2n? If that's the case, then we're actually pretty lucky that any life in the Universe developed at all. Sure, with those odds maybe one or two other planets will develope life at some point in the history of the Universe, but what are the odds that they also have intelligent life, that the life forms existed at the same time as us, they have developed communications technology that we will be able to interpret and find meaningful, and they live close enough to us that such communication is possible? Nil, I'd say.

But that's just the half of it. What if the likelihood of life developing on a planet at any point in the planet's lifetime is actually 1:n²? If that's the case then we're extrodinarily lucky that we exist, the winning ten different lotteries a million times in a row kind of lucky. If this is the case then it's not just useless looking for extra-terrestrial intelligence, it's downright irrational.

Now, to be fair, maybe those numbers are all wrong. Maybe the number's more like 1:10, but that's not the point. The point is that we don't know what the numbers are. The belief that there isn't any life outside Earth is just as rational as the belief that there is. They're both just guesses at this point.

Aloo and Webcomics

I love Indian food. Last night though, I found out that at the local Maharaja Palace restaurant, there is a very big difference between "spicy" and "very spicy." It was as good as ever, but I drank just short of two full pitchers of water.

Unrelated to that in every way, I love webcomics. Unfortunately, webcomics are like anime and poetry. That is to say, there are a few priceless gems among a vast, endless sea of horrifying crap. So, as a public service for all of the internet, I will take my extensive experience drudging through thousands of unfunny, terribly drawn insults to the human mind, to bring you a list of webcomics I find to be of the utmost quality (read: I think they are funny.)

http://xkcd.com/ (for nerds)

http://www.smbc-comics.com/

http://pbfcomics.com/

http://www.thebookofbiff.com/

http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php (for gamers/nerds)

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/ (for gamers/nerds)

http://stock-pics.net/

http://www.rockpapercynic.com/index.php

Okay, so, a fair number of those a pretty reasonably well-known and you're probably already aware of at least a few of them if you're into webcomics, but hopefully there are some you haven't read and enjoy as well. Here are a few more that aren't quite as consistently funny as the ones above, but I enjoy nonetheless:

http://www.partiallyclips.com/http://thisisindexed.com/

http://dragonandtiger.blogspot.com/ (from 44 onwards they are not as good as earlier ones)

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php (for nerds)

http://www.bigfatwhale.com/ (for far-left liberals)

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/ (for gamers/nerds)

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php (contains terrible art, and some pretty lame jokes, but is intermittently very funny if you're familiar with some of the conventions used in MMOs. Also, it's best to read it from the beginning to make sense of what's going on)

Mourning what could have been

One of the greatest musical tragedies of the modern era has to be the death of Jimi Hendrix in his prime. Plenty of rock stars die young, but Jimi Hendrix was much more than a rock star. His music had an artistic integrity and showcased a level of musicianship that outshines many other popular performers, from his own era (which was arguably one of the most fruitful periods in popular music) and afterwards. Not to mention we was an intelligent, thoughtful, and introspective person who displayed a admirable sense of humility even after achieving mainstream success.

Probably the biggest musical loss, in my mind, was that he never collaborated with Miles Davis. the two were apparently pretty good friends and had been talking about doing a project together for a couple of years preceding Jimi's death. Now, there's a lot of Miles Davis' repertoire that I really don't like, but there's almost as much that I do. Though he's not really among my personal favorite trumpet players or composers, he was certainly a talented musician and was constantly redefining his sound.

The idea of hearing these two giants of music play together is made even more tantalizing by the knowledge that it almost happened. Just think of what it could have been.


Jimi Hendrix, playing the hard rock "Machine Gun"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVvtIS2YGVI

Jimi Hendrix, playing "Hear My Train A Comin'" on a 12-string acoustic(!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCQBbgb_Lvo

Miles Davis playing some fusion chart (I don't know which particularly, fusion was never really my thing and the video description doesn't clarify... )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMg95l_qBpg

Miles Davis playing "So What"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjwVwASlVn4

World of Warcrack

The other day I made the decision to start playing World of Warcraft again. It was an unfortunate and regrettable decision.

Jimmy Knepper

Though he doesn't seem to be very well-known, I think Jimmy Knepper was one of the best trombonists in jazz from the 60's to the 80's. He's comfortable in a variety of styles and is very technically accomplished, but he also plays with a certain amout of raw soul that's difficult to quantify.

This is the only video with him I can find on the internet that's of decent quality. It isn't really the best example of his playing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h73im1yqaco&feature=player_embedded

I know he has some good features on Mingus Ah Um and Oh Yeah! (both Charles Mingus albums) if you're interested. I'd recommend picking up a copy of Ah Um (preferably the edition with the three extra tracks) whether or not you're specifically interested Knepper, in fact. It's considered by many to be one of Mingus' best albums, and it sounds just a touch more polished than some of his others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Knepper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingus_Ah_Um

http://www.amazon.com/Mingus-Ah-Um-Charles/dp/B00000I14Z

Home bittersweet home

I've been going a lot of places doing a lot of things lately but I'm back in craptastic Arizona and back on a regular schedule.

http://www.arandomnumber.com/

Also, go here, all of you nonexistant blog readers of mine! (Then again, I could be underestimating myself, who knows? Maybe as many as four people have read this! The thought is staggering.)

Bioshock

I honestly never understood what the big deal was about Bioshock. Now don't get me wrong, it's a good game, but it never really crossed the line into "great" for me. I guess it's that some of the gameplay elements seem too contrived. It's as if they never decided how "immersive" they wanted the game to be. The story is a big part of the game, but at the same time, the order in which you find recordings (for example) seems suspiciously "in order," so you don't really feel like you're discovering them but rather that they're simply being handed to you in a very linear fashion.

Then there's the mixed levels of technology that make you feel a little misplaced chronologically. Automated turrets and cameras? Genetic engineering? I understand that Rapture was supposed to have been established in 1946 and followed a different line of technological development than the rest of the world, but that's way more than 14 years worth of advancement even with some of the world's best minds rounded up, especially given the constraints that would go along with living in an underwater city. Similarly, why are there "bot shutdown panels" that anyone can use all over the city? And what are all these guns doing down here, anyway? There's a million little odd things like this spread throughout the game. While a handful of these sorts of problems is easily forgivable for the sake of gameplay, Bioshock has so many that it makes immersion nearly impossible.

Two of the most lauded aspects of Bioshock were it's political overtones and the moral decision you're forced to make regarding little sisters. Both of these elements seemed pretty shallow considering the amount of attention they got. A man-made paradise doesn't work because of human nature, don't play God (i.e., recklessly tamper with genetics) because you don't have a clue what the results may be, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with this, but it's hardly groundbreaking. It's just your generic "dystopian future" fare with a handful of references to Ayn Rand tossed in (Andrew Ryan, Atlas etc.) As far as the moral choice goes, you're either a good guy (saves little sisters) or a bad guy (kills little sisters). It's not something I'd even mention really, except that everyone made a big deal out of it. It wasn't introducing a new concept to videogames (different game endings based on choices made in gameplay had already been around for a while) and it didn't command anything close to the emotional depth reviews made it sound like it had. Maybe it could have if you had to kill the little sisters yourself ingame, in which case you might've been able to feel truly sinister. As it is, you chose one of two options from a menu, the screen cuts to black, and you're left with either a "saved" little sister or a slug-creature in your hand. It seems like the game does its best to NOT make you feel guilty for killing them, going so far as to call it "harvesting" them rather than killing them.

It's still a really good game, but hardly the masterpiece it was made out to be.

Textured Soy Protein

So, I do intend on putting things here eventually...

F1R5T P05T!!!!1!11!ONE!1!!

So, I figured I'd set up an account here, since that seems to be the trendy thing to do (or maybe it's not anymore, since as much as I'd love to always be up to date with everything geeky, I never actually am). I need a place to put all the rants and ramblings I have stored up in my head and my hard drive, so I figure this is as good a place as any. I like to think of myself as a rather thoughtful and introspective person, so hopefully I'll produce things worth reading.

Handy-dandy list of things I'll probably end up writing about, arranged in no particular order:

• Religion/Atheism
• Video Games
• Science
• Music (with a focus on jazz)
• Politics (maybe)
• Miscellaneous other things like cats, fried potatoes, and jousting.

Hello, interwebs! I guess I'm a part of you now.